The European project BBioNets (Creation and promotion of Forest and Agriculture Networks to boost BioBased Technologies adoption and Value Chain development) has held its kick-off meeting in Ireland. With a budget of nearly €2million funded by EU’s Horizon Europe Programme for Research and Innovation, BBioNets aims to create six regional Forest and Agriculture Networks (FANs) in Ireland, Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland and the Czech Republic to boost the use of bio-based technologies in different geographical areas of these countries, including Andalusia.

Technological Corporation of Andalusia (CTA) and its member company TEPRO Consultores Agrícolas S.L. (Tepro) are the only Spanish partners in this project, which will mobilise European actors related to the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) and the EIP-AGRI Operational Groups. 

BBioNets is a multi-stakeholder project focusing on environmental sustainability and key aspects such as climate resilience, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, zero waste movement and circular economy. During its 36-month duration, its six FANs will extend the work developed by the EIP-AGRI Operational Groups in agricultural and forestry biomass management and/or processing using bio-based technologies. 

The members of the BBioNets thematic networks, which may be associations, agricultural or forestry cooperatives, SMEs, R&D entities or representatives of the regional administration, among others, will identify local needs in terms of the use of specific technologies in agriculture and forestry, and through joint actions, will promote these technologies among their potential users. In this way, the project will favour the use of the resources generated by the EIP-AGRI Operational Groups, betting on the redefinition of local value chains based on the bioeconomy. 

CTA’s role

Within BBioNets, CTA will lead the organisation of regional networks among the project partners, the identification of the needs of farmers and foresters at local level and the validation of the bio-based technologies to be promoted. In this sense and to foster knowledge exchange between the FANs, events will be organised throughout the project at regional, transnational and European level. In addition, CTA will carry out a study on the status of the bio-based technologies identified by the EIP-AGRI Operational Groups and will design the exploitation and sustainability plan for BBioNets.

For its part, Tepro will play a key role in the involvement of relevant actors in the Andalusian production sector. To this end, it will actively participate in the co-creation process of the project, identifying the needs and addressing the challenges of the agroforestry sector concerning bio-based technologies. Tepro is a consultancy firm from Seville dedicated to consultancy for investment, management and agricultural exploitation, which joined the CTA cluster as a member in 2021.

The BBioNets consortium consists of nine entities from six countries, including the Munster University of Technology (MTU) as project coordinator, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority (Teagasc), the Italian Council for Agricultural Research and Analysis of Agricultural Economics (CREA), the Institute of Soil and Plant Growing-State Research Institute (IUNG) of Poland, the American Association of Agricultural Colleges of Post-Secondary Education and Training of Greece, the Greek consultancy firm FOCUS Strategic Thinking Consultants, the BIOEAST HUB CZ of the Czech Republic, Corporación Tecnológica de Andalucía and Tepro Consultores Agrícolas S. L.